Edge side components and application programming environment for building and delivering highly distributed heterogenous component-based web applications

• US 20070180099A1
• Filed: 04/02/2007
• Published: 08/02/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/30/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Lewin, Daniel, Tsimelzon, Mark, Lewin, Anne
• Granted Patent: US 7,467,233 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/509 Offload
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44 Arrangements for executing specific programs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication

Abstract

A method is provided for processing an application on an edge server, wherein the application comprises a set of defined presentation, code and data components, each of which are preferably URI-addressable objects. In response to a client request, the presentation, code and data components are processed according to a set of metadata to generate a response, and the response is delivered to the client. The presentation components are typically content such as HTML fragments, WML fragments, or some combination thereof. The code components are typically Java servlets or beans, XSLT style sheets, or some combination thereof. The data components are typically XML files, native database formatted files, and the like. Each of the presentation, code and data components may have a distinct management profile, cacheability profile, deployment profile, invalidation profile, and security profile. These profiles are settable via metadata or other similar means. Using this framework, heterogenous components may be composed into other components and complete applications or services.

Claims

1. A method performed on a server in a network, comprising:

providing the server with a structured document, the structured document comprising first data identifying an application and defining a request URL domain and path that map to the application, second data identifying at least one rule for composing an instance of the application on the server using a set of one or more components, each of the components being defined in the structured document by a URI-addressable path and being one of;

a presentation component, a code component and a data component, and third data identifying a property of a given presentation, code or data component;

responsive to receipt at the edge server of a request to the request URL domain and path, evaluating the request URL domain and path;

retrieving the structured document;

parsing the first, second and third data in the structured document to compose the instance of the application;

generating a response to the request using the instance of the application; and

delivering the response to the client.

2. The method as described in claim 1 wherein a given component in the set of one or more components has a cacheability profile defined by the property in the structured document.

3. The method as described in claim 1 wherein a given component in the set of one or more components has a deployment profile defined by the property in the structured document.

4. The method as described in claim 1 wherein a given component in the set of one or more components has a invalidation profile defined by the property in the structured document.

5. The method as described in claim 1 wherein a given component in the set of one or more components has a security profile defined by the property in the structured document.

6. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the instance of the application is composed by combining first and second presentation components and generating a third, derived presentation component.

7. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the instance of the application is composed by using a code component to generate a derived presentation component.

8. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the instance of the application is composed by linking a first code component with a second code component to generate a third, derived code component.

9. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the instance of the application is composed by using a code component to process a data component to generate a derived processing component.

10. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the instance of the application is composed by using a code component to process a data component to generate a derived data component.

11. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the presentation components are markup language fragments.

12. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the data components are selected from a set of data components consisting essentially of XML files and native database formats.

13. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the code components are selected from a set of code components consisting essentially of XSLT style sheets, and Java servlets and beans.

14. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the set of one or more components comprises a plurality of components and a subset of the components is homogenous.

15. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the set of one or more components comprises a plurality of components and a subset of the components is heterogenous.

16. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the structured document is an XML document.

17. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the rule also defines a cacheability profile for a result derived by applying a given component.

18. The method as described in claim 17 wherein the result is derived by applying a given presentation component to a given code component.